John Overton

John Overton was an English map publisher who inherited the stock and business of the print-seller, Peter Stent. With the foundation of the existing plate stock, Overton built Stent's business up to being the most successful map publishing house in London by the end of the seventeenth century.

Overton did not produce many original maps and atlases but reissued a series of major cartographic works. Overton reworked some Visscher family atlases and a few of Petrus Kaerius’ maps in the ‘cartes à figure’ style. In 1670 he published his first atlas and bought John Speed’s plates in 1700. When Overton died, his sons, Henry and Phillip took over the shop. In 1717 and 1743, Henry reissued Speed’s atlas to a new generation of readers and collectors.